UK - Countries can decline as well as rise. Take Argentina. Once one of the world’s richest countries, it was still one of the world’s leading nations by the 1960s, wealthier in per capita terms than Spain, Japan, Russia and Ireland and only a short way behind Italy. Yet earlier this year, Buenos Aires received its 23rd IMF bailout. The country is lucky that its president Javier Milei, is a brilliant economist who is trying to turn around its 100-year decline, but the terrible truth is that Britain is now in danger of going the way of Argentina. The fact that we were once rich is no guarantee of our future prosperity. As a set of senior economists today warn, the size of Britain’s debts, combined with high inflation and taxes, mean that we can no longer take continued solvency for granted. It is far from inconceivable that Rachel Reeves may have to follow the example of her predecessor Denis Healey in begging for funds from an international body, a calamitous humiliation if ever there were one.

UK - Food price inflation in the UK has accelerated to a 17-month high this month, worrying policymakers at the Bank of England and worsening the cost of living pressures on British households. The latest measure of shop prices from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and NielsenQ (NIQ) said food price inflation was 4.2 per cent in August year-on-year, up from 4 per cent in July. The Bank is growing increasingly concerned about renewed inflationary pressures spreading from food prices through to other parts of the economy. According to its estimates, food price inflation could accelerate to exceed 5 per cent later this year. The BRC said the biggest increase in prices was for “staple” items such as eggs and butter, while chocolate prices rose after poor cocoa harvests.

USA - President Trump has advanced plans to mould the National Guard into a branch of US law enforcement with an executive order creating specialised units to deal with public disorder. The order builds on Trump’s deployments to Los Angeles and Washington as test beds for using the National Guard on American streets — a rare exception under previous presidents that he aims to use more regularly. Troops appeared carrying M17 handguns and M4 rifles in the capital for the first time at the weekend, despite concerns the soldiers have little training in civilian law and risk being drawn into firing on American citizens. On Monday Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, said arming them was “just common sense”. “Washington was the most dangerous place in this country and now, you know what? It’s probably the safest place in our country,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Monday. “We arrested some very bad people and in the last 11 days… we’ve had no murders. That’s the first time that’s taken place in years. Actually years.”

UK - Nigel Farage said the influx of migrants to Britain was an “invasion” that he had been warning about for years. He said: “It is an invasion, as these young men illegally break into our country.” Farage accused Britain and France of “colluding in their support of criminal activity” with operations in the Channel, and said: “This issue has become a scourge of modern Britain. Just think about the hotels, think about the houses of multiple occupancy, and not just the cost of it, but think how unfair that is, unfair to the 1.3 million British people currently on the social housing list, unfair to those who have legally made their way into the United Kingdom. It’s unfair and the cost, frankly, is eye watering.”

UK - Nigel Farage said he was concerned by migrants potentially facing torture after deportation but said he was more bothered about what was happening on the streets of Britain. The Reform UK leader said: “Of course it bothers me, but what really bothers me is what is happening on the streets of our country. What really bothers me is what is happening to British citizens. What really bothers me is, and you’ve seen this from the Bell Hotel onwards, the growing concern with justifiable evidence that women and girls are far less safe on the streets than they were before this began. So it’s all about whose side are you on?”

ISRAEL - Against the backdrop of the change in policy on the Temple Mount, Finance Minister (RZP) Bezalel Smotrich spoke to thousands of participants at a conference marking the anniversary of Rabbi Kook’s passing on Sunday. Smotrich spoke twice during the event, which took place at the Jerusalem International Convention Center. His first speech in the afternoon addressed the ongoing war. When Smotrich took the stage for a second time, in front of the thousands of people present, Smotrich smiled at Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion and said, "I will give the money, you will build the Temple." The crowd burst into laughter, and sources who were there told Walla that Smotrich said it "as a joke." While it was intended as a joke, it comes at a time when there is, in fact, a de facto shift in the policy surrounding the Temple Mount.

UK - A rat-catcher has warned that this winter will be “horrendous” for major rodent infestations. Kieran Sampler, the founder of the Yorkshire Rat Pack, said the scorching summer, rampant takeaway culture and crumbling infrastructure would create perfect conditions for enormous rodents. The 31-year-old from Wakefield, who hunts rats in the traditional way with his two Lakeland terriers, said his group was now catching rats longer than 20 inches. “It is going to be a bad winter for rats, and people don’t realise – it is going to be horrendous,” he told The Telegraph. It is estimated that there could be around 250 million rats in the UK. They can carry illnesses such as Weil’s disease, which can be passed to humans. “There is always going to be a bad winter after a good summer.”

UK - Ed Miliband has set the UK an impossible and expensive task, to deliver zero carbon electricity by 2030. It has just got more difficult. The private sector that he relies on to invest massively in new renewables, new storage, and new grid has had a torrid time with green investments. Over the year under Miliband, shares in Greencoat, a leading renewable investment company, are down 19 per cent. Orsted, a wind farm investor, is down 43 per cent. SSE is down 5 per cent. HICL, an infrastructure investor with a majority of its investments in the UK, is down 5 per cent. AES Solar is down 25 per cent and First Solar down 1 per cent. Green companies have been delaying and cancelling projects. This has happened despite the UK and US main share indices being up more than 10 per cent. Miliband needs confidence from those with the money to deliver all the colossal investment needed.

GERMANY - Germany’s welfare state is no longer financially sustainable, Chancellor Friedrich Merz has warned, citing mounting financial constraints. Merz made the remarks on Saturday during a speech to fellow Christian Democratic Union (CDU) members in Osnabrueck, a city in Lower Saxony that is home to carmaker Volkswagen. “The welfare state as we have it today can no longer be financed with what we can economically afford,” Merz said, calling for a fundamental reassessment of the benefits system. He noted that welfare spending hit a record €47 billion ($55 billion) last year and continues to rise this year.

HUNGARY - In the swirl of the Ukraine war, headlines rarely fail to shock. Yet the latest spat between Kiev and Budapest raises a question that would have been unthinkable two years ago: has Ukraine effectively opened a second front – albeit hybrid, rhetorical, and economic – against an EU state? The immediate spark was the Druzhba (“Friendship”) oil pipeline that still delivers crude from Russia to Central Europe. Several Ukrainian drone strikes targeted the pipeline in recent weeks, halting supplies to Hungary and Slovakia. A Ukrainian commander, known by the call sign Madyar, publicly admitted involvement. For Hungary and Slovakia, this was more than an economic disruption. Both countries rely heavily on the pipeline, and in response, their leaders called on the European Commission to guarantee supply security.

EGYPT - Egypt has firmly rejected Israeli plans to displace Palestinians from their historical homeland, warning that such actions would amount to the "liquidation" of the Palestinian cause. Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty has been unequivocal in his condemnation of any displacement efforts. In a recent interview with CNN, he stated, "Displacement is a red line. We will not accept it, we will not participate in it and we will not allow it to happen." Abdelatty emphasized that the displacement of Palestinians would be a "one-way ticket" out of Gaza, leading to the "liquidation" of their cause and the end of the Palestinian goal.

USA - Dr Casey Means says America’s health care industry is designed to profit from lifelong illness, not prevention or healing. The stark economic reality of the health care system in America is that every single institution that touches our health — from hospitals to pharma to insurance companies — will make more money if you are sick and less money if you are healthy. “So, chronic diseases… the system profits off treating those as separate things that you do things to for long periods of time. Chronic disease management. So not actually healing it, but managing it,” Dr Casey Means tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey on “Relatable.”

USA - Donald Trump may send thousands of National Guard troops to Chicago within weeks as he extends his control of Democrat-run cities. The Pentagon has drawn up plans to deploy troops to the third-largest city in the US as early as September, although this has not yet been signed off by the president, The Washington Post reported. Earlier this month, Mr Trump mobilised the National Guard in Washington DC and became the first president in history to take federal control of its police force, claiming the capital was being taken over by “bloodthirsty” gangs. Now, for the first time, hundreds of National Guard troops deployed in Washington are to be armed, two US officials said. From Sunday night, personnel patrolling the city will be authorised to carry M17 pistols or M4 rifles.

UK - Home Office data reveal 18 percent rise in number of investigations closed by police with no suspect identified. Nearly 800 shoplifting offences reported to police are going unsolved each day, official figures show. Fewer than one in five (18 per cent) shoplifting cases reported to the police led to a suspect being charged, despite pledges by forces to investigate any crime where there is a viable lead. The data comes as the shoplifting epidemic has hit record levels, with nearly three offences a minute – or 530,643 in total – reported to police in the year to March, at an estimated cost of £1.8 billion to retailers.

VIETNAM - Vietnam has ordered more than half a million people to evacuate as Typhoon Kajiki barrels towards the country with gales as strong as 100 miles per hour. The storm skirted China’s southern coast of Hainan Island late on Sunday, before racing towards Vietnam – where the memory of Typhoon Yagi, a devastating storm that killed at least 300 people last year, looms large. In China, more than 20,000 people evacuated the popular tropical resort destination Hainan Island at the weekend, which was pounded by strong winds and heavy rain as the typhoon travelled over the nearby ocean. But Vietnam is set to be hit directly by Typhoon Kajiki – which will be the fifth typhoon to strike the south-east Asian country so far this year.